Anna Nicole Smith frantically tried to revive her stricken son and had
to be sedated after he died, her attorney said Wednesday. Authorities
termed the death "suspicious" and said criminal charges could be filed.
Daniel
Smith died Sunday while visiting his mother, a reality TV star and
former Playboy playmate, in her hospital room three days after she gave
birth to a baby girl.
"The devastation and grief over Daniel's
sudden death coupled with the sedation has been so extreme that Anna
Nicole experienced memory loss of the event," attorney Michael Scott
said.
The chief inspector of the Bahamas coroner's office on
Wednesday called the death of the 20-year-old Smith "suspicious" and a
formal inquiry that could lead to criminal charges was scheduled for
next month.
Police also revealed that a third person was in the hospital room at the time of the death.
But Scott said that the third person was another one of Anna Nicole Smith's attorneys, Howard K. Stern.
He
said Anna Nicole Smith and Stern continued efforts to revive Smith even
after he had been proclaimed dead by staff at Doctors Hospital in
Nassau.
"Anna Nicole was so distraught at the loss of Daniel
that she refused to leave his side and it was necessary to sedate her
in order to check her out of the hospital," Scott read from a prepared
statement.
He said she suffered memory loss and that it "was
necessary for Howard to tell Anna again that Daniel had passed away,"
he added.
Authorities said they believe they know what killed Smith but were waiting for a toxicology report to confirm the findings.
Anna
Nicole Smith, who went to the U.S. Supreme Court this year to sue for
an inheritance, was in seclusion in the Bahamas with family and
friends, Scott said. The identity of the newborn girl's father has not
been publicly disclosed.
"You would expect any parent who sustained this kind of loss" to seek seclusion, Scott said.
A
jury inquest, which will be open to the public, is scheduled to start
Oct. 23, and Anna Nicole Smith will be required to attend, coroner
Linda P. Virgill said.
"Whenever there is a suspicious death we
would have an inquest to determine how the person died," Bradley Neely,
chief inspector of the coroner's office, told Associated Press
Television News.
The autopsy and toxicology reports will not be
made public until the inquest is held, to avoid prejudicing the jury,
Virgill said.
Jurors will meet in a courtroom inside a
weathered, pink-pastel judicial building in the seaside capital,
Nassau. If the inquest, which will be open to the public, determines a
crime was committed, the case would be sent to the attorney general's
office.
Virgill said there was no sign of physical injury to
Smith, who was seen helping make his 38-year-old mother comfortable
before he died. Anna Nicole Smith noticed him slumped in a chair Sunday
morning and called for help. Hospital staff unsuccessfully tried CPR
and other measures to revive him.
Scott dismissed media reports that Anna Nicole Smith's son had antidepressants or other drugs in his system.
"It's sheer speculation. It's irresponsible speculation, may I point out," he told reporters.
Ferguson,
the assistant police commissioner, told the AP that no drug
paraphernalia or traces of illegal drugs were found on Daniel Smith, in
the hospital room or near the room.
Police believe Daniel Smith went directly to Doctors Hospital in Nassau after arriving in the Bahamas by plane, Ferguson said.
Daniel
Smith was the son of Anna Nicole and Bill Smith, who married in 1985
and divorced two years later. The son had small roles in her movies
"Skyscraper" and "To the Limit." He also appeared on the E! reality
series "The Anna Nicole Show."
Anna Nicole Smith married Texas
oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall II in 1994, when she was 26 and he was
89. He died the following year.
She then feuded with Marshall's
son, Pierce Marshall, over her entitlement to the tycoon's estate
before he died in June at age 67.
Smith won a $474 million
judgment, which was cut to about $89 million, and eventually reduced to
zero. In May, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Smith could continue to
pursue her claim in federal courts in California, despite a Texas state
court ruling that Marshall's youngest son was the sole heir.
